After 4 1/2 years, I ceased daily posting to this website. However, I am sending to some people via email my research into the news. If you wish to be included, just let me know by making a comment below. I will not be posting every day as I did before.

Twenty-seven-year-old former Marine Jon Hammar of Palmetto Bay will
be released Friday from a Mexican prison, according to U.S.
Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Hammar was arrested over the summer in Mexico because he carried an
antique shotgun over the border. He and his family and said it was an
honest mistake.
“No American should be in a Mexican jail for five months without
being able to have his case in front of a judge,” said Senator Bill
Nelson (D-FL). Nelson made a direct appeal to the Mexican ambassador to
the U.S. “We’re grateful; this is a good Christmas present.”
In a recent photo, Hammar was shown in prison chained to a bed causing concern amongst his family. http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/12/21/ex-marine-to-be-released-from-mexican-jail-friday/
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As
Republicans sift through the wreckage of the presidential election and
Democrats brace for the 2014 midterms, there is one clear point of
agreement between them: Independent voters no longer decide elections. [Independents went heavily for Romney. However, it was the under-informed and uninformed who learn all their news from the likes of Jon Stewart and David Letterman, Bill Maher and the like, who turned the election to Obama.]

We
live in an entertainment culture soaked in graphic, often sadistic,
violence. Older folks find themselves stunned by what a desensitized
youth finds routine, often amusing. It’s not just movies. Young men sit
for hours pulling video-game triggers, mowing down human beings en masse
without pain or consequence. And we profess shock when a small cadre of
unstable, deeply deranged, dangerously isolated young men go out and
enact the overlearned narrative.

If
we’re serious about curtailing future Columbines and Newtowns,
everything — guns, commitment, culture — must be on the table. It’s not
hard for President Obama to call out the NRA. But will he call out the
ACLU? And will he call out his Hollywood friends?

Democrats
and the media insist the Community Reinvestment Act, the anti-redlining
law beefed up by President Clinton, had nothing to do with the subprime
mortgage crisis and recession.

But
a new study by the respected National Bureau of Economic Research
finds, "Yes, it did. We find that adherence to that act led to riskier
lending by banks."

Added
NBER: "There is a clear pattern of increased defaults for loans made by
these banks in quarters around the (CRA) exam. Moreover, the effects
are larger for loans made within CRA tracts," or predominantly
low-income and minority areas.

________________________________________________________________________
The collapse of a government-subsidized battery manufacturer has caused
the production of a government-subsidized electric car company to halt,
raising questions about the government’s decision to support the two
companies. http://freebeacon.com/the-domino-effect-of-green-energy-failure/
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The Washington, D.C., Curcuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Obama
administration must follow through on a vow to revise requirements for
employers who offer health insurance to fund contraception for
employees.

Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College are among several
religiously-affiliated institutions that filed suit over the
contraception mandate, saying that it violates their First
Amendment-protected beliefs, reported Fox News.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Outraged families are demanding an
apology from a local school in Idaho after a 36 year-old man entered a
classroom and assaulted fifth grade pupils, putting one in a
choke-hold. Grandmother
Jerry Peery says she only found out about the incident at Highland
School in the rural town of Craigmont, when her grandson returned home
from school on Monday. Ms Peery is just one of the many
family members who called the police regarding the incident, and now
demanding an explanation and apology for delayed action over the
assaults. 'The police
were called only after the kids came home and started telling us parents
what went wrong,' Ms Perry said. 'I would at least like an apology.'

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday night 13 conservative House Republicans defeated the
Rule for the vote on Speaker Boehner’s highly controversial “Plan
B.”
Let’s not forget here that in terms of pressure, a great deal of
it was coming from the GOP House Leadership. Congressmen Amash,
Huelskamp, and Jones were removed from their committee assignments
for not cooperating with the Leadership.
Then there was the great Brent Bozell from For America (as
reported at Breitbart) pounding away just Wednesday at a
Capitol Hill presser saying: http://spectator.org/blog/2012/12/21/reagans-house-heroes-stop-plan

Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, made his "fiscal
cliff" position clear in a press conference today. "We are not going to
do anything," said Reid.

Reid added, "We are not taking up anything they are working on over there."
The top Democrat in the Senate was explaining his inaction on the
House plan, the proposal put forward by Republican John Boehner, the
speaker of the House of Representatives. Boehner's plan is being
referred to as 'Plan B.' http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/harry-reid-we-are-not-going-do-anything_690795.html
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I’m going to make a prediction, right here and now, and write it
down – and call me on it. If the Republicans support this tax
increase, they will lose control of the House in the 2014
elections,” Bozell said.
Richard Stengel, the TIME Magazine guy, the editor. You know, yesterday he was on Today show,
announced Obama as the Person of the Year. He said the reason why they
named Obama Person of the of Year is because the no-information voters
love the guy. They're transforming America. They actually said this.
TIME magazine said it's remarkable he's worth being Person of the Year,
'cause he's the guy that ended up being able, the first politician to
get votes from people who don't care about anything and who aren't
paying attention. That is worth honoring in 2012, almost 2013 America. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/19/ForAmerica-other-groups-to-Republicans-who-support-Boehner-s-tax-increasing-plan-B-We-re-coming-for-you
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Any hope that Jon Hammar, the Marine imprisoned in Mexico on a
disputed gun charge, might be freed in time for Christmas has apparently
been dashed by a terse letter a top Mexican diplomat sent to Hammar’s
congresswoman.
The two-page missive from Mexican Ambassador to
the United States Arturo Sarukhan to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.),
who has been aggressively advocating for Hammar's release, leaves little
hope of a diplomatic solution. In it, Sarukhan takes a thinly veiled
swipe at the U.S., blaming it for gun proliferation south of the border.

"As you know well, Mexico has had very stringent gun-control laws in
place for many years, and have reinforced their application as a result
of the flow of weapons illicitly purchased in the U.S. and then
trafficked into Mexico and into the hands of transnational criminal
organizations," Sarukhan wrote.

Even
more damning, in its absence, was the [Benghazi] report’s failure to step back and
question whether the Obama administration, at its highest levels
(starting with the president), created the conditions for Benghazi by
overstating the decimation of al-Qaida and playing down the significance
of the extremist elements, possibly al-Qaida-linked, that have
reemerged in the aftermath of the Arab Spring in Libya and elsewhere.
Unless this reckoning is made, it is easy to imagine a similar disaster
happening in post-Assad Syria, or elsewhere in the region. This has been
a chief Republican talking point against Obama since the Benghazi
attacks occurred on Sept. 11.

The
chairman and the vice chairman of the State Department Accountability
Review Board (ARB) that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on
U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, made dramatically different
statements on Wednesday about the duration of those attacks that
resulted in the deaths of four Americans.

The
relevant duration of the event shrunk from "almost eight hours" to
"only about 20 or 30 minutes" when a reporter asked this
"accountability" team why the U.S. military had not been sent to
Benghazi to help that night.

During
his opening statement at a State Department briefing, Ambassador Thomas
Pickering, who chaired the ARB, said the terrorist attacks occurred
over a span of almost eight hours.

What you will witness today during the Democratic-led Senate Intelligence Committee investigating
the Benghazi terrorist attack, spearheaded by Hillary Clinton’s
expected replacement, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass), will be nothing more
than a dog and pony show. Sen. Kerry will toe-the-line. This is the same
John Kerry, who after he left Vietnam, accused his
military brothers of war crimes without evidence, wants Hillary’s job, and to keep his future boss President Obama very happy.

We
were warned these times would come: when men called evil good, and good
evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put
bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. Take heed. Those with eyes to
see and ears to hear are mourning America today.

If
the 2nd Amendment is responsible for Newtown, Conn. then let's have a
look at what really kills Americans. Guilty and innocents alike. Let's
legislatively ban the obviously responsible parties in each category of
unnecessary death. (using Left-think)Smoking related deaths - 434,000+

In
the 21st century, are we returning to the racial labyrinth of
the19th-century Old Confederacy, where we measure our supposed racial
DNA to the nth degree? Apparently yes. ESPN sports commentator Rob
Parker blasted Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III last
week for admirably stating that he did not wish to be defined by his
race rather than by his character: "He's black, he does his thing, but
he's not really down with the cause." Parker added: "He's not one of us.
He's kind of black, but he's not really like the kind of guy you really
want to hang out with." (ESPN suspended Parker for his remarks.)

Many forms of violence and hardship have befallen Syria’s people as the country’s civil war has escalated this year. But theSyrian government’s attack hereon Dec. 12 pointed to one of the war’s irrefutable patterns: the deliberate targeting of civilians by PresidentBashar al-Assad’s military, in this case with a weapon that is impossible to use precisely.

Syrians
on both sides in this fight have suffered from the bloodshed and
sectarian furies given dark license by the war. The victims of thecluster bombattacks describe the tactic as collective punishment, a mass reprisal against populations that are with the rebels.

In August 2011, five months after Syria erupted into violence over government repression, President Obama declared that
Bashar Assad should resign from office. Though Obama didn’t use the
words “regime change,” he was effectively making that the goal of U.S.
policy.

Sixteen
months have passed since the president issued his statement. Over that
period, the United States did very little to strengthen the relatively
moderate, pro-Western Syrian rebels who are competing for arms and
influence with extremist, anti-Western rebels tied to al-Qaeda. Instead,
the Obama administration relied on the United Nations to broker a
diplomatic solution. This strategy was always destined to fail, and it
did, with Russia and China vetoing three
separate Security Council resolutions. As a result, the situation in
Syria is far worse and far more dangerous in December 2012 than it was
in August 2011.

“There
were giants in the earth in those days.” The death on December 19 of
Robert Bork—superb legal scholar, preeminent constitutional thinker,
principled public servant—calls to mind the other giants of American
conservatism who have left us in the last decade: Bill Buckley and
Irving Kristol, Milton Friedman and James Q. Wilson, Richard John
Neuhaus and Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp. They were
the greatest conservative generation. They rode into the valley of
liberal orthodoxies and emerged sometimes triumphant, always unbowed.
When can their glory fade? They left our nation stronger and better for
their efforts.

Could the release of “Zero Dark Thirty” provoke violent protests against
the U.S. in response to the film’s searing depictions of “enhanced
interrogation” — the coercive, super-secret and bitterly debated methods
used by the CIA against al Qaeda terrorism suspects?

Try this website again, as the link didn't seem to work yesterday. You will want to get connected! http://elephantstrunkandmore.blogspot.com/
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According to a Wall Street Journal report,
Newark Mayor Cory Booker is now considering a 2014 run for the Senate
seat currently occupied by 88-year-old Frank Lautenberg after mounting
speculation he would challenge incumbent New Jersey Governor Chris
Christie next year. On the internet, a close advisor to Mr. Booker has
prepped for both a gubernatorial campaign and Senate bid. Records show
Mr. Booker’s fundraising advisor and former City Hall staffer Bari
Mattes has purchased the web domains for both “BookerForSenate” and
BookerForGovernor.Update (3:48 p.m.): Ms. Mattes has also registered “CoryBookerForPresident.com.” [OK. Read that last sentence again. I have heard the dynamic and engaging Corey Booker speak, and I have met him. I was truly impressed. I asked for and received a CD of his speech. I see that he might well be the next man to take over the Barack Obama Presidency. I thought Obama should ask him to run with him as VP, getting rid of
Biden, for I thought Obama could not win this election without him. That would have set
Cory up for being the next President. He seems not to be a narcissist, he is very well spoken without a teleprompter, and he has a great story. He did not seem to be the Progressive that Obama is, but that remains to be seen. I wrote at the time I reported on him that we will be hearing more of this up and comer, and here he comes.] http://politicker.com/2012/12/cory-booker-is-keeping-his-options-open-online/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is supporting a bid by General
Electric to export jobs and nuclear technology to China by seeking
assurances from Beijing that it will not steal or transfer valuable
reactor technology, the Free Beacon has learned. [What could go wrong here. We can believe China, can't we? Right... And then we have our American government supporting the outsourcing of American jobs.] http://www.wcnc.com/news/regional/New-SC-bill-aims-to-arm-public-school-employees-184011311.html-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Republicans in Michigan capped off a prolific lame duck session that
included turning the home of the United Auto Workers into a
right-to-work state by passing recall reforms.
The Michigan legislature on Friday pushed through a bill that will
limit the ability of interest groups and residents to recall elected
officials. Challengers now have 60 days to file recall petitions, down
from 90, and recall votes now require opposition candidates rather than
up-or-down votes.
Liberal activists have campaigned to recall Republican Gov. Rick Snyder since May 2011. That chorus has gained a few key labor voices since Dec. 11 when Snyder made Michigan the 24th right-to-work state in the nation and the second in the industrial Midwest. http://freebeacon.com/the-recall-recoil/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The retired police captain told me that, "Door-to-door confiscation by
men and women in blue [i.e. city cops] would be a suicide mission." If
ordered to conduct such gun confiscation actions, many would simply resign on the spot
rather than risk their lives in firefights with determined gun owners,
he explained. "Our officers are not generally willing to assume the
increased risk of such a police action."

He also explained, importantly, that most police officers have not even been trained
to conduct sweeping, community-level weapons confiscation programs.
"This goes against all our community outreach efforts where we try to
earn the trust of the community." If cops suddenly became gun
confiscation enforcers, trust would break down and policing would become
extremely difficult, he explained.

The official Chinese government news agency, Xinhua, has demanded
the US immediately adopt stricter gun control measures to reduce the
number of firearms the US populace is permitted to possess.

The Chinese state-controlled media’s statement, titled “Innocent Blood Demands No Delay for US Gun Control,”
is primarily focused on the Newtown tragedy in which 26 Americans were
killed by a mad gunman. Twenty of the victims were young children. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/12/18/China-Demands-US-Citizens-Be-Disarmed
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Another gun sent to Mexico under the White House’s “Fast and Furious”
program has been found beside a murdered Mexican, just as the White
House prepares to launch a large-scale political campaign built on the
Dec. 14 massacre of 26 Americans in Newtown, Conn.
The dead Mexican, Maria Gamez, was killed in a shootout Nov. 23
shootout between cops and drug-runners. The incident made headlines
because a Mexican beauty queen was killed in the exchange of fire.
Though Maria Susana Flores Gamez reportedly had a gun in her hand,
police said she was likely used as a human shield when the men in the
car she was traveling in pushed her out in front of them.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In an appearance on Fox News, Bolton said that Clinton’s claim that she had fainted because of the flu,
hitting her head and suffering a concussion, was what foreign service
officers call a “diplomatic illness,” intended to free a diplomat from
an unpleasant duty. Clinton was supposed to appear before congressional
foreign affairs committees on Thursday to respond to questions about
whether security failures opened the way for the Sept. 11 attack.
“This is a diplomatic illness to beat the band,” said Bolton, who served during the George W. Bush
administration. “I mean, I hope it’s nothing serious. But this was
revealed in a way that I think was not transparent and I think there is
an obligation here.” [One wonders if she will offer up her xrays. And if she is not hospitalized, why would a headache prevent her from testifying? When the going gets tough, the tough get going.] http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-clinton-faking-illness-benghazi-20121219,0,5649917.story----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------U.S. Reps. Walter Jones, R-N.C., and Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., along
with retired senior defense intelligence officer Col. Walter P. Lang and
the Veterans for Peace today said Congress must be consulted before
Barack Obama would send American troops into Syria.

Or else.
At a press conference, Jones discussed his resolution to oppose American involvement in Syria without first consulting Congress.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today, Sen. Rand Paul issued the following statement regarding the
newly released National Defense Authorization Act for 2013 (NDAA)
conference report.
The amendment, introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and
Mike Lee (R-Utah) and which passed with a 67-29 vote on Nov. 29, was
designed to guarantee Americans the right to due process and a jury
trial. These are basic and core American legal privileges prescribed in
our Bill of Rights, which have been observed since our nation's
founding. Removing these indefinite detention protections now means that
the NDAA is in violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the
Constitution.
"The decision by the NDAA conference committee, led by Sen. John
McCain (R-Ariz.) to strip the National Defense Authorization Act of the
amendment that protects American citizens against indefinite detention
now renders the entire NDAA unconstitutional," Sen. Paul said.http://www.paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=665----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The violence that
broke out at the Sandy Hook Elementary School continues to shock: images
of the little faces and the heroic teachers who tried
desperately to save their students have pierced the hearts of people
worldwide.

As the
grief-stricken families are laying to rest the loved
ones stolen from them in the tragedy on December 14 – the small town of
Bath, Michigan is standing in solidarity with the people of Newtown as
the
Connecticut community struggles to move forward after beingshaken to the core by the unspeakable
violence.

The Midwest
town, just 20 miles from Lansing, was the site of
the most deadly school violence in U.S. history, when in May 1927 a
trustee
from the local school board wired the school with 600 pounds of dynamite
and then detonated the explosive, killing 45 people, 38 of whom were
children. [Well, I guess when one is intent on mass murders, there are other ways to do it than using a gun.]

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

It may not feel like it, but 2012 has been the greatest year in the
history of the world. That sounds like an extravagant claim, but it is
borne out by evidence. Never has there been less hunger, less disease or
more prosperity. The West remains in the economic doldrums, but most
developing countries are charging ahead, and people are being lifted out
of poverty at the fastest rate ever recorded. The death toll inflicted
by war and natural disasters is also mercifully low. We are living in a
golden age.
To listen to politicians is to be given the opposite impression — of a
dangerous, cruel world where things are bad and getting worse. http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-week/leading-article/8789981/glad-tidings/
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Judicial Watch achieved a significant legal victory last week – and
it may lead to cleaner elections. On December 10, 2012, the United
States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis
Division, denied Indiana’s motion to dismiss our historic election
integrity lawsuit (Judicial Watch, et al. v. King, et al. (No. 1:12-cv-00800)).
We allege that the state of Indiana failed to maintain clean voter
registration lists as required by the National Voter Registration Act
(NVRA), and now we will have our day in court. Make no mistake, this is a
HUGE victory for election integrity. True the Vote, the grassroots
clean elections watchdog, is both our client and co-plaintiff in this
important lawsuit. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/17/Judge-Rules-Election-Fraud-Lawsuit-Can-Continue

A professor of history turned to Twitter over the weekend to call for
the death of National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre,
branding the gun rights group he heads as a terrorist organization.

A professor used twitter over the weekend to call for the death of the NRA's CEO.

“[I] want Wayne LaPierre’s head on a stick,” Erik Loomis, a professor at the University of Rhode Island (URI), tweeted.
It “looks like the National Rifle Association has murdered some more children,” he added.” http://redflagnews.com/headlines/university-of-rhode-island-professor-calls-for-killing-of-nra-ceo-wayne-lapierre
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Gunfire erupted at the Mayan Palace Theatre on Southwest Military
Sunday night just before 9:30 pm. This shooting comes just days after a
deadly rampage at a school in Connecticut and sparks memories of the the
mass slaying at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.
An armed off-duty deputy working security was able to take down the shooter before he could kill anyone. http://redflagnews.com/headlines/developing-armed-off-duty-cop-prevents-mass-shooting-in-san-antonio
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Harry Beck, a telecommunications engineer and a member of the
Communication Workers of America union, challenged in 1966 the union’s
practice of using dues for outside bargaining activity, including
political activities. The Supreme Court handed Beck a landmark unanimous victory in 1988 when it ruled that unions had to offer employees the option of paying partial dues used exclusively for employer negotiations.

However, unions have a bad track record
of charging workers their fair share and cooperating with individual
appeals of allegedly inappropriate agency fees. Unions have minimized
the Supreme Court’s ruling by tying up so-called “Beck rights” in
endless red tape. http://freebeacon.com/fight-for-your-beck-rights/
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The contract that allows the Service Employees International Union to
take money from home-based caregivers has a date for which it will
finally end.
-In 2005, the SEIU perpetrated a forced unionization
of Michigan's home-based caregivers. Beginning the following year, dues
started being taken from the Medicaid checks of the caregivers and sent
to the union. The scheme has enriched SEIU coffers by more than $33
million. A running tally is ongoing with the Michigan Capitol
Confidential “Skim Tracker.” http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/18078
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Under the state's new right-to-work law, workers must wait for a
union contract to expire before opting out of pyaing dues or fees. In
that time, unions may try to extend contracts before the right-to-work
law takes effect. To get employers to agree, unions may offer any number
of contract concessions to get employers to accept the deal. Workers
also would have to approve a contract extension, but may agree to
concessions fearing their dues will increase if others drop out.
Unions may also try to intimidate their members into staying put.
Unions could have huge leverage over non-members in handling grievance
and disciplinary proceedures. http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/18081
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The leaders of an independent panel that
blamed systematic State Department management and leadership failures
for gross security lapses in the deadly Sept. 11 attack on a U.S.
diplomatic mission in Libya will explain their findings to Congress on
Wednesday. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_US_LIBYA_ATTACKS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-12-18-21-20-30------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is amazing, especially considering that Diane Feinstein is leading
the charge on tougher gun laws and Harry Reid will bring her bill up for
a vote at some point. They both have explained the need for people to
carry guns. Here is Feinstein from 1995: http://www.therightscoop.com/turns-out-both-harry-reid-and-diane-feinstein-have-carried-guns-for-their-protection/
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A gunman retreated from a Casper nail salon last week after realizing one of its customers was packing heat. http://trib.com/news/local/casper/casper-police-nail-salon-customer-packs-heat-gunman-leaves/article_e3236de2-6756-539a-92b0-ae3aaf64c900.html
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-

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

I WANT YOU ALL TO KNOW THAT I WAS INDEED SERIOUS WHEN I SAID THAT MY DAYS OF RESEARCHING NEWS AND POSTING IT ON THIS WEBSITE WILL BE COMING TO AN END. WHEN ONE OF MY READERS SAID SHE WOULD LIKE TO TAKE OVER FOR ME IN THIS ENDEAVOR, I WAS VERY PLEASED. I HAVE BEEN TRAINING HER EVER SINCE AND WANT YOU TO GO TO HER WEBSITE TO GIVE IT A TRY. BEGINNING ON NEW YEAR'S DAY, MY WEBSITE WILL NO LONGER BE AVAILABLE, BUT YOU CAN TRUST HER TO CARRY ON. VISIT HER NOW AT http://elephantstrunkandmore.blogspot.com/. TO THOSE OF YOU WHO RECEIVE MY WORK VIA EMAIL,YOU WILL BE GETTING YOUR EMAILS FROM THE ELEPHANT'S TRUNK INSTEAD. AS ALWAYS, YOU WILL ENJOY THE VISUALS MORE IF YOU GO TO THE WEBSITE ITSELF INSTEAD OF RECEIVING THE EMAILS. HAPPY READING!--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even the best-intentioned state leaders seeking to
ensure that the exchanges are cost-effective and that they serve their
customers in a responsible and conscientious fashion will have little or
no practical authority to do so. They certainly will have no power to
mitigate the law’s trampling of religious liberties and individual
consciences. Second, Congress has to its credit declined to appropriate
any money for the federal government to create these exchanges, leaving
the Obama administration without sufficient resources to implement its
threat to create exchanges itself in recalcitrant states.

A critical related question — which will almost
certainly be decided in court — is whether the federal government has
the legal authority to offer Obamacare subsidies to customers of
exchanges created by the federal government rather than by the states.
This is important because those exchanges simply will not be
economically viable without those deficit-exploding subsidies, which
will add the better part of a trillion dollars to the national debt over
the next decade, and perhaps more. The law as written authorizes the
subsidies for customers of state-created exchanges but offers no similar
authorization for the federally created exchanges.

And because the states will have to bear the operating costs of the
exchanges they create — which may run as much as $100 million a year —
they are one more way for Obamacare to increase taxes on Americans
without the Obama administration or its congressional enablers taking
responsibility for it.

The states are under no legal or constitutional obligation to establish
the exchanges, and if enough of them refuse to do so, then Washington
will have no choice but to revisit the deeply unpopular law, providing
the country with an opportunity to excise some of Obamacare’s most
obnoxious elements. And though full repeal remains an unlikely
possibility with Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House,
the worst aspects of the law can be delayed or stopped altogether until
such a time as pulling up Obamacare by the roots becomes a real
political possibility. Obamacare is a threat to American health care, to
be sure, but it is also a threat to the character of American
government — injuries to which are not easily healed. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335249/don-t-make-exchange-editors#

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The
law ties the employer mandate of a penalty of up to $2000 per employee.
The laws ties the penalties to those tax credits. Without those
credits, there would be no penalties to employers. The more states that
don’t create exchanges, the more people who will force their
representatives to reopen ObamaCare.
Q: what should people do if their state is doing a partnership with the government?
A:
if you want to stop ObamaCare, get your state to not do anything to
start ObamaCare. Friday, the Obama administration said they’d impose a
3.5% tax on every dollar that is funded from federal exchanges and not
state exchanges. There is no law that gives them that right.- http://gallery.mailchimp.com/378811b3c052d40a005861416/files/12_2_2012_Webinar_Notes.pdf
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A federal judge has ruled it is unconstitutional for North Carolina to
issue pro-life license plates unless the state offers similar plates
supporting abortion rights. http://myfox8.com/2012/12/10/judge-finds-nc-choose-life-plates-unconstitutional/
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Your medical plan
is facing an unexpected expense, so you probably are, too. It's a new,
$63-per-head fee to cushion the cost of covering people with
pre-existing conditions under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

The charge, buried in a recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars for the largest companies, employers say. Most of that is likely to be passed on to workers.

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The Wisconsin Medical Examining Board on Wednesday sanctioned 11 more
doctors for writing questionable sick notes to protesters demonstrating
at the Capitol in February 2011.
The board reprimanded six
doctors, who also took classes in medical record keeping or physical
exams as part of their discipline. The board said the doctors provided
the notes without adequate documentation.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a letter
to Majority Leader Harry Reid, 18 Democrat senators and senators-elect
have asked for “a delay in the implementation” of the Obamacare medical
device tax. Like most of the significant tax increases in Obamacare,
the medical device tax is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2013,
conveniently after the 2012 presidential election.
Each of the 18 Democrat signatories voted for or supported Obamacare in
the first place. And now they want a sweetheart exemption from one of
its most onerous provisions. Even in Washington DC, that shows a lot of
gall.
Read more: http://atr.org/dems-delay-obamacare-med-device-tax-a7380#ixzz2EqNtWBZE--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Judge orders company to rehire unionized health care workers who may have endangered lives of elderly patients

A
federal judge appointed by former President Bill Clinton has ordered
five Connecticut nursing homes to rehire striking employees despite a
criminal investigation into allegations that some of those workers
endangered the lives of seniors.Judge Robert Chatigny on WednesdayorderedHealthbridge
Systems to lay off hundreds of replacement workers in order to make
room for the 600 striking members of the SEIU Local 1199, one of the
Atlantic region’smost powerful unions.
Those workers walked out of their jobs over a contract dispute in July.
Some employees allegedly tampered with the identification materials and
medical records of patients, including some suffering from dementia and
Alzheimer’s, on their way out the door.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Judicial
Watch President Tom Fitton today released the following statement in
response to accusations by First Lady Michelle Obama of widespread voter
suppression in the 2012 presidential election. Appearing on the Tom Joyner Radio Show, Ms. Obama said, “Voter suppression was in full force in so many states all over this country.”

“Mrs. Obama’s accusations about minority
vote suppression are racially divisive and show a dangerous disregard
for the truth. We are aware of no evidence of actual voter
suppression. If Mrs. Obama has some, it should be disclosed.

“The fact is that early exit polls
reflected a pro-Obama turnout by minorities that in some key states
actually exceeded numbers seen during his historic election in 2008. As
MSNBC reported, ‘Non-white voters delivered a wake-up call to
Republicans Tuesday night. Turning out in droves for Obama, Latino
voters alone split 71% for Obama compared to Mitt Romney’s 27%. High
voter turnout by minorities reflected a huge demographic shift that
Republicans ignored at their own peril.’

“Voter ID requirements are widely supported and are no impediment to voting.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seven Secretaries of State have released a statement criticizing
First Lady Michelle Obama for her false claim that Republicans engaged
in voter suppression in the November election:
“Unfortunately the First Lady’s comments continue the baseless
attacks that have been made upon those leaders who are simply taking
reasonable steps to protect the security and integrity of elections.
This past election speaks for itself.
In Arizona, a state that has a photo ID requirement, Hispanic voter
turnout was the highest in the state’s history. In Georgia, African
American turnout has remained high in each election after the state
adopted its photo ID requirement in 2006. In Kansas, another state with
a photo ID requirement, a minuscule .07 percent of voters neglected to
bring their IDs to the polls and all were given provisional ballots and
opportunity to provide photo identification later. http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/12/14/seven-secretaries-of-state-criticize-michelle-obama-for-claiming-gop-voter-supression-occurred-in-the-2012-election/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The US Supreme Court has been asked to step in and make sure the
military cannot detain US citizens indefinitely without charge or trial
as guaranteed in this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, or
NDAA.
Attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the case of Hedges, et al. v. Obama
filed an emergency motion with the Supreme Court on Wednesday asking
the top justices in the United States to stop a White House-ordered stay
that ensures US citizens can be locked up without due process [pdf]. http://rt.com/usa/news/supreme-court-ndaa-indefinite-016/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Israeli and Jewish officials in Denmark on Wednesday warned Jews to
avoid openly wearing religious symbols and dress when moving about
Copenhagen amid rising anti-Israeli sentiment.
“We advise Israelis who come to Denmark and want to go to the
synagogue to wait to don their skullcaps until they enter the building
and not to wear them in the street, irrespective of whether the areas
they are visiting are seen as being safe,” Israel’s ambassador to
Denmark, Arthur Avnon, told AFP. [Does anyone recall what happened in Germany?] http://patdollard.com/2012/12/denmark-government-warns-jews-it-is-no-longer-safe-for-them-to-wear-religious-symbols-in-public/----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, said
today that President Obama “really ought to consider” returning his
Nobel Peace Prize Medal immediately, including the “really nice” case it
came in.
Jagland, flanked by the other four members of the Committee, said
they’d never before asked for the return of a Peace Prize, “even from a
damnable war-criminal like Kissinger,” but that the 10% drawdown in US
troops in Afghanistan the President announced last week capped a period
of “non-Peace-Prize-winner-type behavior” in 2011. “Guantanamo’s still
open. There's bombing Libya. There's blowing bin Laden away rather than
putting him on trial. Now a few US troops go home, but the US will be
occupying Afghanistan until 2014 and beyond. Don’t even get me started
on Yemen!” [Perhaps in the future the Committee should wait until someone actually earns the prize before giving it to him. Empty promises should not suffice.]http://www.thefinaledition.com/article/nobel-committee-asks-obama-nicely-to-return-peace-prize.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a secret government agreement granted without approval or debate from
lawmakers, the U.S. attorney general recently gave the National
Counterterrorism Center sweeping new powers to store dossiers on U.S.
citizens, even if they are not suspected of a crime, according to a news
report.

Whereas previously the law prohibited the center from storing data
compilations on U.S. citizens unless they were suspected of terrorist
activity or were relevant to an ongoing terrorism investigation, the new
powers give the center the ability to not only collect and store vast
databases of information but also to trawl through and analyze it for
suspicious patterns of behavior in order to uncover activity that could
launch an investigation. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/12/gov-dossiers-on-us-citizens/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A veteran Democratic lawmaker believes the nation will go along with
stronger gun control laws if President Obama “exploits” the Newtown,
Conn., tragedy and nudges Congress to action.Rep. Jerrold Nadler,
who represents portions of New York City, said he was encouraged by
Mr. Obama’s statement on Friday afternoon that the mass shooting, which
claimed the lives of 20 young children, requires “meaningful action”
by Congress, but hopes those words turn into concrete legislation. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/14/dem-lawmaker-get-gun-control-obama-must-exploit-sh/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Union Protesters' Attack Hits Local Employer With $35K Tent DestructionUnion
protesters caused at least $35,000 in damage when they trampled and
sliced up two tents on the Michigan Capitol lawn during protests against
right-to-work legislation this week.

The company that owned those tents could also now face higher insurance rates because of the vandalism.

http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/18070
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Speaker John Boehner has proposed allowing tax rates to rise for the
wealthiest Americans if President Barack Obama agrees to major
entitlement cuts, according to several sources close to the talks.
It
is the first time Boehner has offered any boost in marginal tax rates
for any income group, and it would represent a major concession for the
Ohio Republican. Boehner suggested hiking the Bush-era tax rates for top
wage earners, including those with annual incomes of $1 million or more
annually, beginning Jan. 1, two sources said.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ That’s a plausible idea, if the country’s agenda is economic growth and
prosperity. But that is not the agenda of President Obama and his party.
By taking more money away from “rich”people and by spending more money
on “stimulus projects,” the President is able to control more wealth
that is currently in possession of private individuals, and then
re-distribute that wealth to people whom he believes are deserving of it and spend it on things that are important to him.

For Dean, it seems that a recession is an acceptable means to the
intended end: government control of private wealth. In this scenario, it
doesn’t matter so much that working individuals and families often lose
jobs, careers, and homes in recessions. Those are unfortunate things,
sure, but when the goal is government control of the economy, personal
prosperity ceases to be a priority.
If this sounds far too conspiratorial, consider the report last week
about the President’s squabble with non-profit charities. In a December
13th news story, the Washington Post reported that the Obama
Administration was leveling a threat to the leaders of high-profile
charity groups: either publicly support the President’s tax hike plan,
or face the possibility that the President will seek to reduce tax
deductions for charitable contributions.
We’re talking here about long-standing, reputable groups like the
American Red Cross, United Way, the Salvation Army, and World Vision.
And yes, if charitable donors couldn’t deduct the amount they donate
from their income taxes, they probably wouldn’t donate as much – which
would hurt charitable groups. But again, the goal of the Administration
is controlling private wealth, and the prosperity of private individuals
and organizations is not a priority. http://townhall.com/columnists/austinhill/2012/12/16/in-washington-the-goal-is-control-of-private-wealth-n1468062/page/full/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hollywood has responded to the rampage at a Connecticut elementary
school by pulling back on its offerings, and one star says the
entertainment industry should take some responsibility for such
violence.

Jamie Foxx, one of the industry's biggest stars, said Saturday as he
promoted Quentin Tarantino's upcoming ultra-violent spaghetti
Western-style film about slavery, "Django Unchained," that actors can't
ignore the fact that movie violence can influence people.

"We cannot turn our back and say that violence in films or anything
that we do doesn't have a sort of influence," Foxx said in an interview
on Saturday. "It does."

About Me

I began this blog when my local liberal newspaper (in a Republican district) not only refused to print any of the negatives about Barack Obama, but then refused to run my letter to the editor entitled Ten Reasons Not To Vote For Obama! I realized it's time to do something more than fume about it! I hope you learn some things your paper is not teaching you....